


The Kid

by HeliosNerd



Category: Original Work
Genre: Coming Out, Crime, Detective, M/M, Murder Mystery, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Sexuality, it starts sad but ends happy, please read I had such a good time writing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 23:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20515163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeliosNerd/pseuds/HeliosNerd
Summary: Grady’s the best detective in the city, but the unsolved murder of a kid has him spiraling down a rabbit hole of his own making. Secrets and repressed truths complicate everything as he struggles to make sense of the crime—and keep his private life firmly under wraps.Part murder mystery, part journey of self-discovery. I would really appreciate a read!





	The Kid

She cut like glass. Since day one he’d known she was one to watch, a dangerous sort of studied and professional person. Always destined for greatness. She went by Luci, and emphasized its meaning. Every day Grady was grateful to have her as a partner; they were setting records left and right for closing cold cases, convictions, and public approval. The cascade and the quiet storm, they called them, forces of nature. People always asked when they were getting married. It was a tired routine but they laughed every time. If only they knew.

Their desks were adjoined and she always sat on her half when work was sparse. It made her taller. While she traded stories with someone across the office he spun a pen across a notepad and watched curls appear down the margins. They just needed a call back, coming any minute. The lights were loud today, maybe trying to speak and give them that update. He thought about thunder and the forecast for rain. Too far from the window to tell. Printer running, ink and paper and the tang of overheating electronics, somewhere behind it a spoon in a coffee mug. All around it was a mundane day, the kind where hours stretched out and even the best parts of the job quickly became sisyphean tasks. He felt like leaving, taking the afternoon and heading west until he ran out of west to go; whether that would be from an empty gas tank or hitting the next ocean he wasn’t yet sure. Not a thought in his head save counting the seconds until the call came in. 

Then the shots rang out.

It was two in rapid succession, and Luci was out the door before he could stand up. He pursued in time to watch the third, a handgun wielded by a glove in a nondescript SUV the culprit. Luci pursued the vehicle and he nearly followed until he saw a figure staggering. It was just a kid, no more than sixteen, with a cotton cap pulled over his ears and a backpack slipping off his shoulders. His hands held his stomach and Grady reached him in time to ease his fall.

Terror seeped into his eyes alongside tears. He lifted a hand and reached for Grady, a scarlet palm soaking into Grady’s jacket where the boy gripped. He inhaled sharply while the pain rose, and spluttered, “Am I gonna die?”

“No way,” Grady promised him. He tried not to look down at the three bullet holes in the kid’s belly but that didn’t stop him putting a hand over them. Even when the kid winced he pressed, feeling the hot blood on his palm and the cold rain on his knuckles. 

The kid’s breath came shallowly, and suddenly he was gasping. He clung to Grady’s jacket desperately, begging him with grief-stricken eyes while the color ebbed from his cheeks. 

“You’re not gonna die,” Grady told him, over and over. The kid nodded and he nodded along, a promise they shared now. He pulled the kid’s head into his lap, hoping to cradle him a bit even though it wasn’t medically the best choice. Trying to stanch the wound was trying to hold back a fire hose but like hell was he letting go. The boy’s hand grew shaky and slipped off his jacket. Grady took the hand, held tighter for him, whispering what he could to make it okay. He was distantly aware of Luci approaching and the pulsing red lights of an ambulance siren but he couldn’t hear either. The boy’s every wheezing breath rattled with anguish and came shorter, like a burst, a last-ditch effort to save him. His eyes never left Grady’s, a piece of them still glowing with naive trust even as the rest of them dulled. 

Silence.

Grady felt himself pulled by the shoulders, his vision blurred from the rain while he watched an EMT crew converge on the boy. He had to release his hand. Luci was at his side, kneeling on wet sidewalk concrete, saying something he chose not to hear. He watched the boy, his eyes fixed upward, his fingers still curled to clutch something. The medics stood up. Someone unzipped a black bag.

“He’s going to live,” Grady said suddenly, tripping over himself to stand. “You can’t do that, he’s going to live.”

Luci held him back by the arm. “He’s gone.”

“I don’t care who got away, we hafta get this kid to the hospital now.”

“Grady.” She tugged. “He’s gone.”

All he heard was the rain, thudding rhythmically on concrete sidewalks and his blood-soaked jacket and the black bag they wrapped around the kid.

***

The backpack collapsed in a heap when he dropped it, spilling an assembly of frayed notebooks and chewed pencils across their desks and interrupting Luci’s meticulous documentation. He tore into it while she watched and took notes, logging evidence while he ignored the thought of the frightened kid locked for the foreseeable future in a dark morgue freezer. A folder full of crumpled sheets of notebook paper gave them a name, Giles Anhelo, which was corroborated when he dug further and found a scuffed high school ID card. Such a carefree smile in the little photo, but an unfortunate surname. Grady tried never to judge based on a name alone but this was an exception; only one person in the city was called Anhelo, and Grady did everything in his power not to bring him up. 

“Think this kid was Nick’s?” Luci asked with one of the notebooks in her hand. 

Grady shook his head slowly, watching the loose pages of a binder while he skimmed it. “Nick Anhelo, with a kid?”

The handwriting on each lined page was frayed, jagged, the scratches of a determined student. Each margin bloomed with doodles of flowers and animals. Grady knew enough from his school days to see the work was good, math calculated correctly and grammar arranged properly. A diligent student, if not a little messy and distracted. On each zipper of the bag a different keychain, and stuffed towards the bottom some loose change. Luci noted everything meticulously on paper while he pondered them, searching for a motive somewhere amidst school planners and graded tests. He was an absolutely ordinary kid. 

“You’re right,” Luci admitted. “Nick’s not old enough for a kid this age. But they have the same name. Maybe Nick can help us find the family, let them know what happened.”

Grady felt his blood run cold, and this time washing his hands in the bathroom wouldn’t be enough to warm back up. There was never a doubt in his mind about taking the case—not when he promised the kid up and down he’d be okay—but the backpack was supposed to reveal everything he needed to know to do this by the books. Not send him down the precinct’s worst rabbit hole. 

Luci cleared her throat. “You want me to go?”

“No.” He took the school card and his bloodstained jacket and paced for the door. “You know if we want him to be forthcoming it has to be me.”

Of all the cops that sought him out, and for all those late nights spent with him in a conference room poring over clues and solving cases with his insider knowledge, Grady was the only one who seemed to be able to find him. He walked a very specific beat timed almost to the minute, changing places by the day, but he was consistent. It was a logic puzzle trying to find him but Grady always could. If others couldn’t they certainly weren’t trying hard enough. The routine alone distinguished Nick from common criminal informants and more professional consultants, but Nick was the type to be set apart from everyone. At first his cooperation with the law was limited to very reluctant witness testimony, at a time when Grady only saw him in passing, and it was a common horror story to be saddled with interrogating Nick Anhelo. He was too critical to so many cases to be let go, and when he was given the official informant appointment it came with much frustration for anyone who had ever worked with him. Nick commanded a room, often loudly, and he spoke cryptically when it seemed he could implicate himself in something illegal. He had a model’s face and knew it, angular planes and extraterrestrial lines forming each feature, eyes always drawing everyone’s gazes like camera lenses, like magnets. He was blonde and bronze, metallic in every shade. Legs like steel, always taut against his jeans. Deft, deceitful fingers and a voice like honey whiskey. Even though his jacket reeked of cigarette smoke his skin carried the scent of candle wax and perfume.

Even the thought of Nick was commanding enough to drive away all traces of a murder investigation from Grady’s mind. Nick consumed his subconscious with increasing frequency. They’d closed many a case with Nick’s information and it had always come off as the last time he would ever cross paths with the notorious consultant. Yet he came crawling back to alleyways and motel rooms again and again and again, seeking Nick whose beat had shifted over the years to better suit Grady and Grady alone.

Today they reunited behind a dive bar. Rain seemed to fall harder there, under all the leaky gutters and fire escape rusted by a thousand storms before this. Grady wiped the largest droplets from the student ID but they still streamed across the photo like scratches. Nick hadn’t yet seen him, distracted by staring straight ahead. He stepped louder, stirring those glassy eyes and drawing the full force of Nick’s attention to him. Still, after all this time, Grady felt the gaze land on him like an electric shock.

He tried to stop a respectable distance away but Nick leapt off the wall and stood in front of him with arms crossed. His hair was darkened by the rain and strung down his face in smooth lines, highlighting the softer edges of his cheeks and vivid, angry pain of his eyes. Like always he looked at Grady in a way no one ever had, something anguished and overjoyed all at once. His fingers dug into his own jacket sleeves, warding against cold and something else. “What is it this time?”

“I need to find someone.” Grady handed him the card, and Nick sheltered it while examining the picture.

“He’s not mine, if that was your question,” Nick huffed, pushing the ID back into Grady’s hands. His fingers lingered, twinges of adrenaline for every second they stayed like that.

“No.” Grady half-stepped back. “He died today.”

“Don’t tell me it’s his.” Nick gestured on his own chest to the place where bloody handprints still adorned Grady’s jacket. “Don’t tell me you watched.”

“It’s my job.”

“Not to watch.” Nick closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, shakily. He folded on himself briefly and unfurled with the exhale, looking Grady in the eye. “If I were you I’d never go back.”

“You keep thinking I don’t have the stomach for this.”

“No, I keep thinking you deserve better.”

Grady snorted. “Not me, not anytime soon. Do you know the kid?”

“No.” Nick narrowed his eyes, raindrops flooding down his lashes. “Haven’t you called the school?”

“If he was yours, I wanted you to be the first to know.”

“You knew he wasn’t mine.” Nick reached one hand towards Grady, grabbing his forearm.

“Maybe you knew something.” 

Nick used the hold to pull himself closer. “I know I have a half-sister in the city. Never met her in person. She could have a kid this age.”

“Anything else?”

“I know we’re due to meet this weekend.” Nick’s other hand slipped around Grady’s waist while his original grip shifted from forearm to bicep. Each finger softened as they rested against Grady, trapping him, weaving the strangling web that hypnotized him since day one. 

“Save it ’til then,” Grady insisted, pushing sharply away. “I have a murderer to catch.”

But the trail ran cold that afternoon, after a call to the school and the parents. Giles Anhelo may have shared blood with Nick but it would be a weak connection at best, as the kid had been adopted as an infant by a sternly religious couple who were less than devastated to learn of their son’s grim fate. They were tight lipped with most everything but let slip their concern for Giles’ most recent behaviors, something they labeled ungodly but would specify no further. They couldn’t name a single one of his friends, any hobbies, or even places Giles may enjoy being; of course this meant they had no idea what would bring Giles to the front of the police station to be shot dead. Teachers called Giles a shy kid who spent lunches in the library and who disappeared the moment class was released at the end of the day. Ballistics reports only corroborated Luci’s witness testimony. And the kid himself went from warm blood to cold photograph clipped to the inside of a case folder. 

With every favor he’d ever earned Grady pushed the case. Someone knew something and he was going to flush them out. He patrolled the streets in a way he hadn’t since his rookie year, called Luci to interrogate tougher suspects, knocked on office doors and apartment windows in the mad dash to catch a killer. At first he sought justification so he told everyone there was a brazen murderer on the loose, one that could strike at any minute as violently and randomly as with Giles. He burned through his cold cases and old criminal enemies but the pattern only blurred further until it was nonexistent. Come Friday he was told gently by Luci while standing in the alley behind the precinct that they were shifting priorities. It wasn’t the first time they’d been reassigned—and each time before they’d defected, disobedient cops but stellar detectives. But her dark eyes and hands shoved deep down her pockets told him this time it was serious. So he scratched down notes from the file and copied the photograph and hid them both away in his desk before turning over the case. 

When he left that evening it was well past everyone else, a tradition of sorts every five weeks. Stay late, deep into the night, kept alive by fluorescent lights. He tried to be the last one there, had to make sure the cameras saw him. And when he left he took his car down the familiar roads home. 

Home was a relative term, anyway. He turned sharply away, aimed away from town. It was a forty minute drive down backroads in pitch black while it drizzled ink, but the route was ingrained into his mind. His fingertips were the first things to go numb but soon enough he felt nothing at all. Quiet slushing of tires on slick pavement and pattering of raindrops all fading to a dull white noise. He was lulled by it all, tranquilized rather than calmed, settling into the stupor of taboo routine. His hands slipped down the wheel and his brain felt iced over. Every five weeks. It had been this way for close to a year and he could make the drive blindfolded. Just as well since he was just a heartbeat away from dead now. 

Shots rang out, three in rapid succession, and he swerved into the opposite lane. Luckily the street was empty and he corrected course within a few seconds, but he slowed while searching for a gunman. He strained to hear, started to forget what the world sounded like. His heart pounded and pushed blood back into his extremities, his eyes adjusted almost instantly to the dark, and he eased off the gas while scouring the sides of the road. 

Nothing. He was only hearing phantoms. He flexed his fingers and kept driving and chalked up the entire incident to the late night and the suspense of the journey. It all came to an end when he pulled into the parking lot of a roadside motel and sat in the idling car. Right in front of him, emblazoned in cheap brass, the number nine adorned a familiar door. Its image burned into his eyes, as real when he closed them as the shots had seemed. When he found his nerve he knocked on the door just below the nine, no words necessary when it cracked open and hazy light poured out around the silhouette of Nick Anhelo.

They settled on five weeks because it was a difficult pattern to track. It fit right in with Nick’s very particular schedule and was disguised well by Grady’s dedication to working late nights whenever possible. The first time it happened was dark magic; shots at the bar after a long day bled into kisses in the alley, the only thing clear to him the slate gray of Nick’s eyes. He was coherent enough back then to suggest a motel, that Nick would rent the room with cash and Grady would meet him there after waiting ten minutes. A cruel miracle he hadn’t backed out then. Nick was seductive and the spells he cast irresistible too, and Grady couldn’t remember any time before that night when his blood ran so hot. All his life he’d tried not to feel so deeply, but Nick was a new euphoria. It was a desire Grady forced down at every turn—it’d been beaten into him early. He fought every second of it. It only made the end that much more gratifying. When they were done and he stayed awake staring at the ceiling with Nick laced between his limbs he vowed never to let it happen again. Then Nick offered and he couldn’t say no.

This was the tenth time. They pulled the blinds shut and snuffed out every last light and found each other in the dark. Grady whispered first—unusual, but the only words he could find were “pretty boy,” the first thing he’d ever called Nick with any semblance of affection. Nick was elated. They tangled fingertips while Nick spun filthy stories with his silver tongue, and the rain droned on outside. The room was hot all too soon, sealed so tightly away from the rest of the world. Hot, but not warm. Grady’s guts churned and his blood tested the limits of every single vein, and his palms were slick and trembling. Without seeing him he knew every inch of Nick, his familiar weight and heat. Once, Nick had told him to only do what made your heart race and your soul yearn for more. 

Alive, he said. And Grady felt alive tonight. 

He rode the high for hours after Nick had fallen asleep, a burst of endorphins taking its sweet time to burn through his system. Where once he had fought it all back now he clung to every sensation. He studied the cracks in the ceiling and thought he could sense the room growing lighter as his eyes adjusted to the nothingness. Each breath mellowed the intensity of his pulse—it had long ago slowed but his heart still pumped emphatically, noticeably. Once it was over and his body finished resetting he would fall asleep, and just like all nine times before he would be woken up too early by guilt and shame. It usually ebbed by the time he got back, now that he was accustomed to the routine and was confident in the measures he took to hide it all. For now all he could do was savor the fleeting sensations and pull Nick just a little closer. On any other day the man unnerved him, but in each of these ten nights he felt peaceful in his presence, and on each of these nights Grady considered the possibility that he may have a soft spot for Nick after all.

His eyelids were growing heavy and he was struggling to focus anymore, so he rolled onto his side and surrendered to falling asleep, but not before he saw it. Against the faint light of the blinds stood a shadow, short and slender with a cotton cap pulled over its ears. Grady blinked twice and tried to focus; all in gray, he could make out three bullet holes in the shadow’s stomach and dark splatters up and down his clothes. The shadow’s eyes glowed, not fear anymore but disappointment. Grady held its gaze for a long time. 

He flinched when Nick’s drowsy, sleep-addled voice suddenly broke the silence of the room. “You okay?”

“Fine.” He squinted and the shadow was no more. 

Nick ran his hand in a long, gentle stroke up and down his arm. “You’re sweating.”

“It’s hot.”

“You were talking in your sleep.”

Grady readjusted himself, shifting to his other side so he could look Nick in the eye and break the physical contact. “I wasn’t asleep.”

“You kept saying it was going to be okay.” It was the only time he’d ever seen Nick concerned. “You’re scaring me.”

“I’m fine.” He mustered a smile, fake as it may be. “Pretty boy.”

Nick laughed quietly. “You’re definitely not. What’s going on with you?”

“What are you doing?” Grady sighed, closed his eyes. He was accustomed to Nick’s silence this late into the night.

“What?”

“What are you doing.”

Nick propped his head up on an elbow. “We’re talking. I know, you’re not the type for talking about things outside work, but normal people do this.”

“No.” Grady kept his eyes shut until Nick tapped his chest. “What do you want?”

“Same thing I’ve wanted since day one.” Nick’s eyes gleamed, silver moons in the dark. “We’re alone. No one could possibly hear you out here. I want you to treat me like you might actually enjoy my company.”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

Nick pushed himself up. “Prove it to me, then. At least tell me what’s giving you nightmares.” 

“Fine.” Grady collapsed onto his back. At least from here he didn’t have to look Nick in the eye. “It’s the kid.”

There was quiet. Not silence, not when he could hear the uncertainty of Nick’s breathing. At last he murmured, “There was nothing you could have done.”

“You don’t know that. You didn’t see what I did.”

“The kid was going to die with or without you there. You weren’t holding the gun.”

“It’s like I was.”

Nick’s breath was soft but distinctly audible. Grady focused on it, steady and persistent. When he spoke it was much quieter, with a sincerity Grady didn’t associate with the man. “I know how it is. I’ve been there too. But the only thing you can do is recognize it wasn’t your fault and move on.”

“It’s my case.” Grady felt his flesh prickling coldly, the air around him chilled. “If I don’t find out who and why, if I watched that kid die just for the sake of it, it’ll always feel like my fault.”

“Take a break, at least.” Nick’s hand on his chest was the only warmth he could sense anymore. “I don’t want to watch you die too.”

A handprint emblazoned over his heart. Part of him wanted to smack it away, tell Nick to leave him alone once and for all. A larger part wanted to take it, bring all of Nick closer, fall victim to desire. But he did nothing. 

He left before dawn the next morning, and watched the sun rise over the cityscape. When he left Nick was still feigning sleep, and the thought of saying something passed through his mind like it did every time. Grady was a man of few words on the best of days so it was no surprise, but in light of the kid he almost felt strongly enough to speak up. A mysterious nobody named Anhelo dead in the street really made him think twice about the arrangement. 

That was a new direction. It was supposed to be his day off but he went straight back to the precinct while the thought was still fresh. Giles and Nick weren’t the same by many metrics—and they only bore a passing resemblance to one another in Grady’s mind—but with that name perhaps there was a connection after all. If Giles had been like Nick in a different sense, involved with suspicious groups and enigmatic to his closest peers, perhaps treating his case like one of Nick’s would shed some light into the otherwise dead end investigation. He was at his desk by then with a new stack of slender files heaped on top of it, all of which he pushed aside under Luci’s scrutinizing gaze. He had to start writing before the train of thought was lost. Nick didn’t know the kid at all, that was a given, but if Giles ran in the same circles and worked the same kinds of jobs he would be in harm’s way all the time. Giles was a known loner at school and estranged from the only family he had, so the people who knew him must be harder to find. That meant he would need a way into that world. 

He composed a list, types of people to find and what to ask them. When he could find Nick again he would send him off on this, trusting him to stay safe. He had to know what Giles was doing before he could extrapolate a motive. But lots of people wanted Nick dead at any time, and none had ever been bold enough to take a shot at him out in the open. Unless the attack was meant for Nick and hit the wrong Anhelo, Giles was mixed up in a much more dangerous world than appearances made it seem. He went back through his copy of Luci’s notes, scouring the details for any red flags. Maybe Giles had a notebook, a suspicious lunchbox, anything abnormal for a kid to be carrying to school. But there was nothing. Just like before, Giles was an absolutely ordinary kid. 

But his gut was telling him otherwise, and so far he hadn’t been led astray by instinct. Looking for patterns where others missed them, that was how Grady beat the game over and over and climbed ranks without the experience of age. He knew there was more to Giles. If the kid hadn’t made himself a target knowingly he had certainly done something sufficient to provoke an assailant. He wasn’t murdered randomly, not by a gunman in a getaway car with their hand covered up. The hair on his neck stood up when he thought of it, feeling a burst of cold pass through his body while his notes were consumed by rapid, almost compulsive streams of thought. What was Giles buying or selling, and where did he go in all that time nobody seemed to see him? All he had to do was answer those questions. So close he could almost taste it, the metallic taste of gunshot between his teeth. And he would have stayed there in a manic stupor, writing, had Luci not grabbed his shoulder. She glared, stone cold, and dragged him into the hallway. 

“You trying to get me fired?” she seethed quietly. “We were told to drop the case. I wasn’t joking.”

“I’m close,” Grady argued, matching her volume. “I can be done by Monday and you’ll never have to hear another word about it.”

“Do you even know what we’re assigned to?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Drug ring?”

“No.” She exhaled loudly, exasperatedly, eyes shut and teeth gritted. “Think about this for a second. Do you know what this means for me?”

“Nothing?” They both hesitated, straightening their backs as a uniformed officer trudged past. He rammed Grady’s shoulder on the way but neither of them said a word.

“If you go down they’re taking me down too,” she said. “They’ve been looking for an excuse to fire me since day one.”

Grady felt the thought resonate with him for a moment, but it was difficult to believe in light of everything Luci the cascade had done. “Not you. They need you.” 

“I’m a publicity stunt.” She stepped back, shoulders squared and stacked solidly above her knees. It was a routine pose when they were asked to speak with civilians or appear in pictures or at events. Her badge was prominently displayed on her belt, less of an identifier than a target. He was wearing the same clothes from last night but she was freshly pressed and pristinely tailored. Not even a hair misplaced on her head. “I can be every bit as good as you but I’ll never be right for the job, the chief says. I’m not hard enough, not cut out for it. Things would go better if I just listened to you. I’ve heard it after every case.”

“None of that’s true. Someone has to know it.”

“Yeah. You.” She crossed her arms but it was no less staged, still the image of perfection. “You can take the hit, maybe get demoted but still have your job. I’m on thin ice and if you go down that’s the end of me. It doesn’t matter what you or I know.”

“It won’t come to that,” Grady assured as the chill spread back over him. For a moment he saw the kid’s face appear over Luci’s shoulder but he had to let it drift out of his mind just then “But you have to let me finish this.”

“Finish it on your own time.” Cracks formed in the facade as her gaze turned sharply back down the hall. “Just don’t let me see it.”

He looked too. It didn’t prepare him properly to see Nick, leaning against their shared desk, coat draped across Grady’s chair. Nick was skimming the notes with disaffected eyes but shifted his focus to them. Luci nodded curtly at the intruder before striding off, deeper into the hallway and the building, leaving Grady alone with the living embodiment of his darkest secrets. This wasn’t part of the routine and he felt a million eyes aimed right at him while he made the long walk back. 

“You have work for me,” Nick commented to break the ice, indicating towards the list of questions half buried between new musings. 

“What do you want?” he snapped. Hostile, overt maybe, but no one would be too surprised to hear Nick treated in such a way.

Nick placed both hands on the desk, emphasizing the wingspan of his shoulders while drawing in all the buzzing light in the room. “I want to tell you what I know about your kid.”

Grady wasn’t violent. Never so much as aimed a gun at a living being, let alone lay an uninvited hand on someone. But right now he felt a different kind of anger, one built of disappointment and hope at the same time. Information from Nick was the only thing that solved cases around here half the time, and it had never been withheld before. Surely Nick wasn’t trying to play him for favors. Perhaps, if he were someone else, Grady would have grabbed Nick by the collar, thrown him against a wall, tried to knock some sense into the man like so many cops had done before. But the chill stuck to his skin the irate thought subsided quickly as it had come. 

“Tell me.”

Nick nodded, bewildered at how easy this was. He’d clearly come ready to bargain. “I was going to tell you sooner, but you came here so early I didn’t get the chance. I managed to hunt down one of his friends.”

“You better not be harassing kids.” He said it flatly, surprised by his own indifference.

“You should have more faith in me by now.” Nick sighed, paused, and then leaned close. “I wasn’t looking for anything, if you can believe it. I ran into this friend and learned something I think might change your investigation.”

Grady shut his eyes against the light and the even more blinding presence of Nick. “Are you gonna tell me what that is?”

“We should talk privately,” Nick urged softly.

“I’m not in the mood.”

Nick shifted, and Grady assumed even blind that Nick was right in front of him, too close for comfort in light of his conversation with Luci. When Nick’s hands forced into his own he thought about last night and what he would say to end things and smooth over relations with his coworkers. But Nick was passing him a paper, not casting spells, and when he opened his eyes Nick was once again safely away. He caught that magnetic gaze, unable to look away so long as Nick was there. And it seemed the same for Nick.

“Go there, that’s where I met him,” Nick said, gesturing to the paper now in Grady’s hand. “He said he’d be there to meet with you too, but only you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” Grady murmured, studying the address on the paper. He didn’t recognize the street but it wouldn’t be hard to find if it was part of Nick’s usual haunts. 

Nick shrugged but he whispered, “I was going to tell you this morning. You left early.”

“Can you do this for me while I meet with the friend?” Grady nodded in the direction of the questions, trusting Nick to sort out what was assigned to him and what was Grady’s unofficial speculation. 

“After you meet this kid, I don’t think you’ll need me anymore,” Nick said. Nonetheless, he gathered up sheets of paper and left for the door, his coat still on Grady’s chair. It was better this way anyway, less said when people could hear. He was finding it harder and harder to talk to Nick like everything was ordinary.

The address led him deep into the city, way downtown to the shadier alleyways and fried neon humming bitterly. The sidewalks were splattered with stains and fractures from seam to seam, falling apart under every step. It wasn’t unusual to see windows boarded up with glass dust still sprinkled on the ground around them, and many a storefront stood empty or occupied by dusty remains of merchandise. He was on the right street but the eyes falling on him were hostile, even without his badge on display. One after another he passed places he shouldn’t be, people who didn’t want him around, and he was numb to it all until he saw the faded sign of his destination. Unassuming from the outside, just a bar with sooty windows and a worn brass door handle, but he saw the slurs painted across the walls of the place just as he walked in. Better for now to ignore all that.

It was early, too early for most customers, but Grady found the kid at the end of the bar, pressed against the wall. No one else in there was young enough except him, and Grady felt just enough pity for the so obviously distraught child he decided for now to overlook the more pressing concern of the kid’s age in a place like this. He didn’t need to announce himself, walking over was enough, and the kid regarded him worriedly.

“I was sent by Nick,” Grady announced quietly, his voice softening.

“You’re him, right?” the kid asked. He leaned forward. “The cop?”

The words fell on Grady like an accusation. Not for the first time he felt guilty about admitting it. He nodded. “Nick said you could help me.”

“I didn’t want to, at first,” he admitted. His voice was high from fear. “But I didn’t know there were cops like us.”

“Do you mean like you and Giles?” Grady pressed.

The kid’s head bobbed up and down. “Like me, like Nick, like all of us in here.”

“I’m not sure I–” But then, suddenly, he understood. The graffitied slurs, the lawless part of town. Giles was a loner at school and a sinner in the eyes of his family. He did have something in common with Nick, but it wasn’t criminal. Grady broached it gently as he could. “Who was Giles to you?”

“He was my boyfriend.” Tears welled up in the corners of the kid’s eyes. For a moment he looked just like Giles—rain soaked, foolishly hopeful. “He was so careful but his parents found out. They told him it was because of his real mom and that he was a lost cause and then they weren’t talking to him at all. He ran away so I was trying to help him. He was supposed to come to my house.”

“Is that why he was in front of the station?” Grady could almost see the case being closed now, with how forthcoming this friend turned out to be. But every second spent looking at his misty eyes broke Grady’s heart a little more.

“Yeah. It’s the easiest way to walk there. I took the bus that day.” The kid sobbed involuntarily, and covered his mouth for a moment while trying to hold his breath. When he found some semblance of control he continued, “I thought it would be safer.”

Grady hated himself for having to ask. “Do you think his parents could’ve done something like this?” 

“No. They were glad he was gone but they weren’t like that.”

“Did anyone else know about you two?” Grady took a seat beside the kid. “Does Giles have any enemies?”

“A few people knew, but everyone loved him.” The kid dropped his head into his arms, collapsed across the bar. “People here knew. They let us come in so we’d have a safe place. We didn’t drink. Some of my friends from school knew but they helped us hide it. And there used to be a cop that drove around down here, he saw us but never talked to us.”

Grady put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. Briefly he saw a hand on the other shoulder, smaller and covered in dark blood and rain. His own body felt heavier, slowly being crushed by the sadness of both kids. “Did Giles say anything to you before it happened? Could he have known?”

The kid shook his head, still buried in his arms. “He thought things were gonna get better.”

“They will.” It was the second time he made promises without the power to keep them. “I’m sorry.”

“Nick said you were there.” The kid lifted his head slightly. “It’s nice to know he didn’t go alone.”

Grady met the sunken eyes of Giles, who stood uncomfortably between the boyfriend and the wall and kept steady pressure on the kid’s shoulder. It was so vivid yet he was acutely aware of imagining it, a hallucination perfectly integrated into—yet wholly detached from—reality. “I know it isn’t much, but I’m doing everything I can to find out why this happened.”

“Nick said you were.” The kid attempted a smile. “He said you were the best detective in the city.”

***

As a rookie, he built his career on an elaborate mess of murders. It was a seemingly patternless spree, terrorizing the city while he and Luci were still in the academy. When they got out they jumped right in—he could see now she had been assigned the hopeless case believing she would fail, that it would mean the end of her career. He could still see the officer’s face when he handed over the case file, smug and superior. Everyone underestimated them both at the time, but it was her intuition paired with his determination that found a method to the killer’s madness. It was a team effort to piece together every clue, attach even more murders to the same culprit. It was the first time he’d ever consulted Nick, and that information was crucial. With Nick’s help they not only tracked down the murderer, they surprised him. Booked him along with everything documenting past and future crimes. It all made sense with everything they found, but it took their two brilliant minds and the seemingly unhelpful Nick to actually make any headway.

It was a logical step to detective from there, for him and Luci. He remembered it being summertime, their shields glittering in blazing sunlight, making calls to the family to share the good news. Her parents were proud but unsurprised and congratulated them both, while his barely said a word. The clouds rolled in right after that call, a summer storm right in the middle of what should have been a celebration. He went to meet Nick for drinks that night, and the rest was history.

It was Saturday night, and his head was still reeling after talking with the friend. The boyfriend, he corrected himself. Once he got back to the station he worked dutifully with Luci on their assigned case, unwilling to be the cause of her downfall. They made significant progress but had a long way to go on Monday. She left earlier in the evening than usual for her weekday schedule—though he could not speak to her weekend routine—and he stayed only enough time afterward to organize his notes and compile everything he’d learned about Giles today. Everything else Nick learned for him corroborated what the boyfriend had said; Giles wasn’t doing anything illegal aside from being in a bar, and the only people who knew him outside of school knew him from there. Grady saw it vividly all the way home, two young kids sneaking around at twilight under the stretching shadows of the city. He remembered it, even, orange sun flickering off polished windows and the rattle of skateboard wheels and the hot wind coming off asphalt roads. 

He unlocked his apartment subconsciously, entered without really taking in the room. But then he looked up, and saw a silhouette on his couch. No instinct to reach for his gun, just one to walk slowly, almost silently, eyes trained on the stranger. They lifted their head, stretched across their shoulder, eyes bright against the dark. His first thought was Nick, the only person he could imagine wanting to see him at this time of night despite the fact he’d never told him where he lived. But this shape didn’t have the right hair, or the right nose, that much he could tell even with the darkness. Whoever they were, they were familiar, but distantly. He knew them but he couldn’t describe why.

“Nick?” he guessed anyway. The shadow shook its head but stayed put, so he turned on a light.

Cotton cap pulled over his ears, eyes full of rain, and blood spatters up and down. Giles in the flesh, every detail from that day right there in the mechanical light. There was still some color to his cheeks, not much but certainly more than how he’d last seen him. Against his better judgement he walked closer, reaching out a hand while Giles watched his face. He stopped just before touching the kid, too afraid of what he’d find, and took a seat instead in the armchair across the room. They faced each other in silence, Giles expectant while the gears turned in Grady’s mind. He brought himself to speak in a hushed tone. “That was your boyfriend today?”

Giles nodded solemnly.

“You were on your way to his place when it happened?” Grady clarified, receiving silent confirmation from Giles. “Your parents weren’t involved?”

Tears spilled slowly out of his eyes, but he shook his head.

“Who did it?” Grady asked, half-serious. 

Giles held up a hand, then pointed to it with the other. Grady studied the gesture vacantly, but then remembered the glove. It seemed so insignificant at the time, something to hide fingerprints and skin color, something that could be thrown away and they’d probably never find it. It was a work glove, though, tough hide and well worn but not professionally. The kind of item any home gardener or mechanic could have. It wasn’t latex or expensive leather, which narrowed his suspect pool a little. It wasn’t a motive but it was a clue nonetheless.

Suddenly the situation dawned on him. It was the night after his arrangement with Nick and he was lonely and upset and exhausted. He’d abandoned the kid’s case entirely for the work he was supposed to do, even though what he’d learned was slowly shifting the way he thought about who Giles was and why anyone would possibly do this to him. And he’d made another hopeless promise to another kid.

“Are you even here?” he said through strained laughter. “Why don’t you throw something at me. Aren’t ghosts supposed to do shit like that?”

“Is this enough for you?” Giles replied simply. 

The voice shattered through Grady, painfully familiar. The worst thing, though, was that he actually heard it. But the shock subsided quickly in light of his original goal. “Who did this to you?”

Giles glanced down at the holes in his stomach. “I didn’t see anything but the glove.”

“Why, then?” Grady clutched the armrests, pulling himself forward so he sat on the edge of his seat. “If you’re a ghost you should know why.”

“I think you already know,” Giles said, quiet and almost forlorn. “It’s who you are.”

“I never wanted to be a cop.” He saw it as a confession, his own admission of guilt in a long con. “I wanted to be a nurse. I tried to play with dolls when I was a kid, tried to take care of them. And all that stopped real fast when my dad found out. I don’t know how I lived through that night, but I did. So I picked something else, something I could tell him so he wouldn’t ever get that mad again.”

“Cop?” Giles guessed knowingly.

He nodded more times than was necessary. “But if I was stuck being a cop, I was gonna be the best damn cop in the city.”

“I think the city agrees,” Giles commented. “Nick thinks so, at least.”

“Nick,” Grady echoed. “He’s something else, kid. Not sure he’s qualified to say what kind of cop I am, let alone person. But he’s been there all this time and I still can’t look him in the eye when I’m at work. I wish it were easier.”

“Me too.” Giles agreed, voice cracking.

His mind went back to the boyfriend, to the buildings bathed in sunset and the parents left behind. “Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone else?”

Giles nodded, sitting up a little straighter.

“I’m gay.” It was a bullet in his own stomach, saying it out loud. “I never wanted to be it either, but it’s not something I could choose.”

The kid stayed silent, attentive anyway. His eyes almost seemed to glow now that Grady really looked at them.

“I didn’t mean for things to be like they are with Nick,” he continued bitterly. “He thinks so much of me. He thinks I should be somewhere better, that I’m worthy of more. God, do I have him fooled. I don’t even talk to him and he’s still around. If anyone deserves better it’s him.”

“I don’t think it’s about deserve,” Giles said haltingly, his eyes flicking down to the floor. “We wouldn’t be here if I got what I deserved, right?”

“No, we wouldn’t.”

Giles opened his mouth but hesitated. His brows came together gently, nervously. “I’m scared that you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m stuck here until you figure it out.”

“I’m not gonna let that happen,” Grady assured him half-heartedly. “Is that why you’re here? You’re stuck until I solve your case?”

“That’s not what I said.” Grady blinked and Giles was right there in front of him, leaning over him. From here he could smell bullets and blood and he heard the distant din of a storm. He wondered as terror welled up in his gut if this was how Giles felt, so cold and isolated and staring into eyes just as hopeless. Hearing that everything would be okay as his soul slipped out. For a moment Grady even felt that, out of body, detached and dissociate from himself. He reached involuntarily to Giles, to the wounds, hoping to cover them. He felt the cold well in advance, but then his hand pressed into solid.

He woke up late Sunday morning, heart pounding. Too many surreal nights and draining days were all starting to blur together in his mind. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened but he had a sneaking suspicion about a glove and a motive. His notes were scattered haphazardly on the floor and he was slumped uncomfortably in his armchair and his body ached dully all the way through. He wanted to blame it on how he slept that night. He saw a corner of Giles’ photograph poking out from beneath Nick’s sheet of answered questions. Nick’s handwriting looked so misplaced amid his own, pretty and dramatic in contrast to his jagged, straightforward script. Before any sleep-addled revelations slipped away he tried to write down what he thought now. 

Whoever killed Giles was ordinary, knowledgeable enough to conceal their identity but not professional enough to use a more disposable garment. They knew of Giles but there wasn’t any sort of recognition on the kid’s part. It was odd but not random. The scene, right outside the police station, that was deliberate too. It had to be. The killer knew Giles would be there—that he would be walking alone—and he wanted the kid found right away. Maybe a message, maybe a threat. He thought it over and over again since he first learned the kid’s name, but a loner named Anhelo dead on his figurative doorstep was no coincidence. And after talking with the boyfriend, there was certainly another element of connectivity between Giles and Nick that felt too personal to be happenstance. So Giles was killed, almost staged, to send a message. His best bet for the recipient would be Nick. All of it was stretching the limits of what was fact, what was proven with evidence he’d actually collected, and his instincts were telling him he was still missing the mark. 

The season only grew drearier as the weeks stretched on. He yearned for the sun but rose each morning to clouds and persistent wind and mist. Bitter coffee carried him through for a while. He was starting to lose track of eating, of sleeping, only aware that in the mornings he went to work and spent the day gliding through cases and clues and interrogations, and in the evenings he went back home. Luci commented once to him how she didn’t like this change, whatever it may be, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. He was cold all the time anymore, not just physically but mentally. She said he acted more distant than usual but he’d never been particularly social, so no one else felt the same. Regardless, he was still preparing cases and booking criminals and the captain heaped praise on him for the work Luci was doing. He noticed that more and more, perhaps the only thing of which he was truly aware lately. Every so often he would experience a moment of lucidity, of absolute clarity, when he would look objectively at the kid’s case and realize he had nothing substantial and worrying it was killing him just like Nick said. But then the moment would pass and he would fall right back in. 

Giles appeared more frequently, and his presence was no longer shocking. Usually he was just background, sitting in a corner of the precinct or passing deftly through pedestrian traffic. He seemed to have a particular affinity for sitting on Grady’s couch and greeting him when he finally got off work, but he never talked as clearly as that particularly dreamlike night. He wasn’t a loud presence, just a common one. His arrival was heralded by shivers of rain-soaked air and the tang of blood, but Grady was growing numb to both. Instead, he recognized Giles the same way he did Luci, an accustomed sight in the usual places. Both of them were ingrained in his routine and just as real as each other. Giles was short, slim, a somewhat forgettable figure but with a sweet face and striking eyes. He always dressed the same, with the remains of the crime still stark against his more subdued color palette, but aside from that Grady almost thought of it like looking in a mirror to his own adolescence. He too used to be understated, quiet, always existing in spaces without really occupying them. Giles observed, so attentive and engaged even when he was just a piece of the backdrop, and more than once Grady caught him interacting with his notes. At this point, he was probably more of a detective than Grady. If only he actually had any answers.

The only flickers of light he saw anymore were Nick. The informant was in and out of the office in his usual rounds, and Grady saw him all the time around the city. It was no use avoiding him anymore, not when just catching his eye made his heart skip a beat. They exchanged quick words about nothing while on the job, and met after work sometimes. It was outside of their standing arrangement, the two worlds kept separate for now while he worked to reconcile his older opinions of Nick with his newfound appreciation for his presence. When he was with Nick he never saw Giles, but he did think of their one conversation. It didn’t matter; he was functioning in something of a fugue lately, and Nick jump started his pulse better than anything. 

On Friday evening he and Luci made weekend plans, something he hoped would help snap him out of his recent sense of aimlessness. Then she left and he stayed late, true to the routine he and Nick had now maintained for a year. When he was the last one there and surrounded on all sides by inky night he left. Giles was in his car, expecting the ride solemnly. They exchanged quiet pleasantries but then Grady was alone with his thoughts. He checked the seat a few times, even reached out and felt around in case the kid was still there somehow. The sight of Giles so close to him, so present in what he was trying to do, reminded him of deserve and just what he would say to Nick tonight. He really had to come clean, find a way to tell Nick what he'd told Giles. But all that was easier said than done, not after all this time spent in a very controlled, very distant, very private arrangement. There was no telling how Nick would react, for one, if he would be quiet like Giles or much more responsive. Then there were next steps, harder conversations than just the confession. And if it all went well then, he would still have to face the possibility of his coworkers finding out. It would absolutely mean the end of his career and possibly even real danger—his coworkers’ rampant intolerance of his own partner did not bode well for him. Maybe it would be better to say nothing at all, go on in secret forever. Maybe one day he'd even marry Luci, just to keep up appearances. But now his stomach ached sharply, like an open wound, his own guilt manifested, and it grew worse every time he considered leaving everything as it was. Consequences be damned, he was going to tell Nick.

The long drive flew by easily, he practically blinked and was in the motel parking lot. Right there, right in front of that brass nine and the well-worn doorknob. He practiced what to say a few times, changing his statement minutely, glancing all the while to the passenger seat in hopes that Giles would offer some bit of encouragement. Giles was young but he'd actually done this, and it had worked out up until recently. The kid was gone, though, so Grady was alone muttering to himself in a car in the dead of night. He was coming out of the fog the longer he sat but he wanted to be just a little more steady before heading in. He wasn't ready. At this rate, though, he probably never would be. He went towards the nine, walking through freezing air that rose the hair on the back of his neck. When he knocked Nick called out instead of opening the door.

He knew that was wrong. Not in ten times had Nick ever said anything so loud, not something that could be heard by just anyone. He hesitated right there, for once thought to go in armed, but opened the door slowly instead. Whatever this meant it wasn't enough to wake him all the way up. 

“Grady I'm so sorry,” Nick said immediately. “He followed me.”

He was sitting on the bed, facing the door, with a handgun against his temple. A work glove wrapped around it, finger resting precariously on the trigger. Grady followed the arm to a deep blue uniform shirt, golden shield, and vaguely familiar face. 

“All the way in,” the gunman demanded. Grady abided for the sake of Nick, shutting the door quietly behind him. 

“Officer,” Grady greeted coolly, eyes narrowing. He lifted both his hands subtly. “Something I can help you with?”

“You should confess now,” the gunman said. His hold on the weapon was practiced, unshaken, but his eyes were wild. “It’ll make this all much easier.”

“I don’t have anything to confess.” Grady watched Nick swallow, saw his fingers digging tightly into musty sheets. His jaw was taut, brows knitted, but his shoulders trembled. “You’re gonna have to tell me what’s going on. Is this man in trouble?”

“Don’t say it like that,” the gunman growled, jabbing the barrel of the weapon into Nick’s head. Nick flinched but his face didn’t change. “I know what you two do. I know it all. Don’t try to say anything otherwise.”

Grady nodded. “Okay. You do know, then, that I’m a detective in this precinct. Nick’s an informant. It isn’t a good idea to threaten either one of us.”

“I know all about threatening this piece of shit.” The gunman practically spat it out, his grip tightening around the gun while Nick shut his eyes. “I tried every trick in the book to get him to talk to me. Didn’t know I was supposed to fuck him, but then again, that’s not in the book.”

“I don’t follow,” Grady said carefully. But now he was starting to piece together where he’d seen this man before. This exact cop had bumped into him in the hallway of the station, the same day he talked with Giles’ boyfriend. That wasn’t the only memory but it was a good start.

“I knew you were an idiot.” Suddenly Grady was making eye contact with the gun. “I worked that case from day one. I spent years trying to find something out of nothing. We all knew Nick Anhelo was involved but he wouldn’t talk to me or anyone else. Then you come in and he’s telling you everything.”

“Nick never withheld anything,” Grady defended calmly. “We watched every one of his interrogations, read every statement. We just asked him different questions and got lucky.”

The gunman shook his head and Grady recognized the smugness, the superiority. “You and that bitch got the promotion that should’ve been mine. I thought, maybe it’s a one-time thing and you’ll be gone as soon as they saw neither of you were competent. But you kept using Anhelo and you kept getting convictions. It’s not right, how you kept making him lie for you.”

“I never lied,” Nick muttered, cracking an eye open. He shut it real fast when the gun swiveled back to him. 

“Officer, that’s not what happened.” He felt the fog coming back but for once he struggled against it. “My partner and I do good work. We make use of our resources when we can, and sometimes that means talking with Nick. That’s all.”

“You’re not getting it!” the gunman shouted. Grady felt his entire body freeze. “I woulda let you go back, confess everything and turn yourself in the right way, but if you’re gonna be this way you don’t get a choice. What you’re gonna do now is, you’re gonna get the hell out of this city and never come back. You even step foot over the county line and I’ll blow your brains out and then go for him. I tried once, don’t think I won’t do it again.”

“I’m not going anywhere, not for a long time.” He could smell blood and rain, hear a storm approaching off in the distance. “You can’t get away with killing us.”

“You mean like I got away with killing that kid?”

The storm went silent. Grady surged to life, his pulse roaring. First he felt shock, not for long though considering the glove and the target named Anhelo. Then it was rage, unbridled and vicious and primal. He saw red. He thought of the weapon on his hip, the one he’d never even unholstered. “You killed my kid?”

“It was supposed to be enough,” the gunman seethed. “Anhelo knew him. He was supposed to tell you and you were supposed to quit the force. You woulda seen it’s too dangerous for a homo. Everything would go back to normal.”

“I didn’t know him,” Nick insisted through gritted teeth. “We went to the same bar, we weren’t friends.”

“You,” Grady said quietly, clenching his fists until they shook, “killed my kid?”

The storm came back, wind throwing raindrops against windows and the roof rattled like it may collapse. Grady stepped towards the officer but watched him carefully, always mindful of the weapon. He had to make a move but without missteps.

“I’ll kill him too if you don’t leave right now,” the officer threatened, shaking his gun unstably. “He’s useful so I don’t want to, but you’re not giving me a lot of options. Do I need to find your bitch too?”

“Call her that again.” Grady reached for his weapon but didn’t draw just yet. It wouldn’t be loaded, it never was, but the gunman didn’t need to know that. “You’d be lucky to be a tenth the detective she is.”

“Last chance,” the officer warned. “Leave, or his blood’s on your hands.”

Grady surged forward, straight into the officer. The gun went off as the officer went down and then fell to the ground with them, kicked under the bed by one of them in the chaos. Grady threw punches and fought for a grip, anything more substantial to give him the upper hand, but the officer was strong. He kicked and Grady winced, falling briefly to one side before seeking a chokehold. The officer grabbed at Grady’s weapon with the new proximity but when he found it empty he tossed it and threw himself up with full force. Grady dodged, barely, managing to roll to the side and climb to his feet. He saw Nick cowered beside the bed, and had just enough time to meet his eyes before the officer was up and swinging. If there was one shining feature about Grady, though, it was his speed. He couldn’t be hit. He ducked and stepped back and saw from the corner of his eye Nick reaching beneath the bed.

When the next blow came he dropped, crawling to Nick. He didn’t see Nick do it but the gun was pushed shakily into his hands, and he turned around as the officer swiped down at him. It took one shot. 

He fell back into Nick, gun somewhere on the floor. He shut his eyes tight so he didn’t have to watch, but he heard the thud of the officer soon after. The wind outside howled and he was so cold, shivering uncontrollably when Nick’s warm arms wrapped around him. Nick’s breathing was speeding up but he didn’t make a sound otherwise. Grady groped blindly, first finding the arms around him and then following them back towards Nick’s face. 

“He didn’t get you?” Grady said, voice high and wavering.

He felt Nick shake his head first. “No. You?”

“I’m fine.” 

“Like hell you are,” Nick teased breathlessly, exhaustedly. His grip grew tighter. “You’re sweating.”

“You think?” Grady opened his eyes and shifted so he could actually face Nick. Everywhere there was contact he felt warm. Warm, but not hot. “We hafta call this in.”

“Grady,” Nick said airily, but with new seriousness, “We have to talk for a second. You call this in and they’re going to ask about why we’re both here. What do you want me to say?”

“We’re not gonna lie,” Grady vowed. “We’re telling them exactly what happened, and why we’re here.”

Nick frowned. “You’ll lose your job.”

“I’m done with it.” He cupped Nick’s face. “Pretty boy.”

When first responders arrived the first thing he did was turn in his gun and badge. The captain tried to argue with him at first but when the whole story came out there wasn’t another mention of Grady staying on. He and Nick spent about an hour in the ER to learn neither of them was suffering from any more than shock, but when they were discharged Grady couldn’t stand the idea of going back home alone. He brought Nick with him. It was the deepest but least restful sleep of his life that night, and the next morning they were roused by a concerned Luci at the door, after Grady missed their plans. If she was surprised she didn’t show it. He filled her in slowly, having to explain the entire case as well as the details of the night. Nick squeezed his hand tight with every word he said.

It took a month for the waves to settle. No arrests came from that night and no punishment ensued. He didn’t miss the job in any way but he met with Luci periodically; she was still his closest friend, even after his sudden resignation and the rumors flying through the precinct. She rose to sergeant not long after he left, and while it brought quite a few angry men out of the woodwork she wasn’t letting it slow her down. He was relieved to hear it. Also in that month came a lot of hard talks with Nick, but he never left them feeling worse. There was his confession, of course, how he felt and who he was. And after that it was the more terrifying question of where to go from there. They were living together and testing the waters, trying to take things slow. Lately they were trying to decide what was next for them individually, mainly in regards to work. The official end of the investigation freed Grady up to leave, to finally move on. But he had one last hard talk before any of that started. 

Nick was uncomfortable with it at first. Cemeteries held much darker memories for him than for Grady, and he was ready to wash his hands of everything and never look back. Ultimately he agreed to go—Grady told him over and over he didn’t have to, that it was a personal matter and he didn’t have to be involved, but Nick was stubborn. They picked a good day for it too, an early morning when the sun was starting to break through the clouds again. Headstones were still frigid cold and dismal gray no matter what color the day was, but it wasn’t quite so consuming today. Grady wasn’t sure where to look but he felt compelled to search anyway, dragging them deeper and deeper until they found the understated stone. Grady stood right in front of it, Nick to his left, and kept his head down while he composed his still reeling thoughts. From the corner of his eye he saw the kid walk up to his right.

“Nick,” he said at last, “this is Giles.”

Nick waved quickly at the headstone. “Hey, kid. We may have crossed paths a few times before, and I’m sorry it got you roped into all this.”

“It’s okay,” Giles mumbled. “It’s not your fault.”

“I solved it,” Grady said, facing the grave but addressing Giles. “I don’t know if you heard. It was a cop, he thought I was coercing Nick into lying for me. He thought you knew each other too. He thought he could drive me off the force by killing you. It’s all over now, though. He’s not hurting anyone anymore.”

“Do you know what you’re doing now?” Giles asked.

He hesitated, but the decision was made a long time ago. “I’m done being a detective. I’m trying to be honest with myself now. I don’t know where I’m going yet but I’m not worried.”

“He’s got plans,” Nick joked softly, resting a hand between Grady’s shoulder blades. “I’ll keep him on the right track.”

Giles smiled, leaning forward to look at Nick. “It gets easier.”

“It’ll get easier,” Grady echoed. “Thanks for staying with me.”

The sun stretched mightily across the sky, comforting, pulling the entire world up just a little bit. The headstone didn’t seem quite so somber anymore. They stood side by side for a little longer, Nick’s hand on Grady’s back, a spot of exceptional warmth. Every inch of his body felt alive, his heart strong and his shoulders at ease and mind refreshingly clear. When they left—hand in hand—they also left Giles, but Grady looked back just once and saw the kid take off the cotton hat for the first time. Giles seemed much lighter without it, practically glowing, melding into the sunlight. And then he was gone.

Silence. But this time, peaceful.


End file.
